Don't Merge - Will introduce some images and demonstrations. The robot differentiates the telepresence and telerobotics. -Tmcsheery March 23, 2006

It is important to note that the Telerobotics article in Wikipedia contradict an article on the same subject in a printed encyclopedia - "McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science & Technology, 2006." The printed article argues that telerobotic technolgoy is advance enough in the terms of vision and senses to be able to do most of the work with little or no human interaction. On the other hand, the Wikipedia article argues that this technology needs to be more "human-like"in order to be efficient. I urge you to make an update if needed to your article. Thanks, Marla.

I support the merger of teleoperation into a section of this article. If someone wants to expand that section dramatically, that will be the time to break out teleoperation into its own article. Sdsds 05:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

i also support the merge even if telerobotics and teleoperation was to be taken deeper the two topics are fairly hard to seperate as robotics and mechanical engineering are 50/50 in both feilds...

According to Murphy, "Introduction to AI Robotics", teleoperation is the correct term for this topic. To speak of "telerobotics" is slightly misleading, because the term "robot" is applied to the mobile, kind-of-autonomous thing, while the machines welding and painting cars are called "industrial manipulators"; teleoperation can be applied to both, so there is not necessarily a link with robots in a more narrow sense. So I think the articles should be merged under teleoperation. -- 790 20:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't merge. I believe teleoperation and telerobotics are two distinct and very different topics. Teleoperation does not refer to any autonomous operation, simply the fact that a machine is being operated over a video system with the operator in complete control of every movement. Whether the system is tethered or radio remote controled makes no differece. Teleoperation requires realtime response with almost no delays. A 250ms delay is all that is required to demolish a $1M plus piece of equipment. There are no "let me do that agian". Telerobotics makes reference to "robotics", which implies some autonomous functionality with supervisory control via video, "tele". Program a set of movements, push a button, see if the desired action happened. Correct or enter new instructions. Repeat. Realtime response and realtime video feedback are not required. Wikisigg 03:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Start of new comment: Telerobotics is basically the remote control of a vehicle or machine or plant.. Controlled by what? - usually a human, but a single human could theoretically control several machines over the world more-or-less simultaneously. At the same time, it might take more than one human to control the same machine or process. The 250ms lag you mention would be a real shame for a headsup display with headtracker etc. but telerobitics, in my opinion, does not stipulate that it must be operated in real time. This, I think, is where telepresence is distinguished. In order to have a telepresence, the operator would have the feeling that they are somewhere else, and that would probably suggest the video link, head tracker, force feedback of some kind of glove system, etc. The telepresent operator would be controlling something more or less human or having human capabilities, such as looking, moving, touching, or some subset of these. A telepresent operator would presumably be in a 1:1 ratio with the machine they are controlling.

Telerobotics, in my opinion, could be extended to non-human control of remote vehicles, machines, or plants and still not lose the distinction of being telerobotics. Large lag times, an controlling multiple systems is still entirely possible, since there is no other word to describe this at the moment.

So in my opinion, Telepresence is a subset of telerobotics, geared towards a more "virtual reality" type of system, except that the reality is not virtual, but remote. remember, there are so many shades of grey here that we can't get overzealous with definitions. End of comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.195.192.6 (talk) 15:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

For over 20 years, telepresence robots, also sometimes referred to as remote-presence devices have been a vision of the tech industry. Until recently, engineers did not have the processors, the miniature microphones, cameras and sensors, or the cheap, fast broadband necessary to support them. But in the last five years, a number of companies have been introducing functional devices. As the value of skilled labor rises, these companies are beginning to see a way to eliminate the barrier of geography between offices.

The source contains:

For nearly two decades, telepresence robots, or, more properly, remote-presence devices (RPDs), have been something of a white whale for the tech industry. Engineers didn’t have the processors, the miniature microphones, cameras and sensors, or the cheap, fast broadband necessary to support them. But now they do, and in the last five years, a number of companies have sprung up to introduce the first truly functional devices. [...] As the value of skilled labor rises, these companies are beginning to see a way to eliminate the barrier of geography between offices.[1]

This needs to be rewritten by someone who has knows more about this topic than me, preferably also dealing with the relative time references "For nearly two decades" and "in the last five years". — Qwfp (talk) 13:33, 26 October 2016 (UTC)